---------------------
  Puppies From Hell
~ A Moment of Haven ~
---------------------
	Heero wandered into my room, bringing an armful of clean and 
folded laundry in with him, and proceeded to prove to no one in 
particular that I wasn't the only one that knew how my partner's 
underwear drawer was arranged.  I didn't notice him until he was done, 
though, when he shut the drawer, turned around, and gave me a querying 
look.  "You're not really reading that, are you," he stated more than 
asked.

	I looked up with a start from my place on my bed, reclined 
amongst my pillows.  "Am, too," I protested automatically.  "It's a 
stimulating article on, uh, dangit, how could you tell?"  Heero advanced 
the necessary few strides to my bedside and gestured at the cross being 
held in my left hand.  I looked down, slightly startled to find the 
piece of silver caught in my fingers.  I didn't recall ever picking it 
up to play with at all.  I let it go.  "Hn.  Guess I should never play 
poker with you, eh?"

	"Since I don't play poker, that shouldn't be a problem," he 
answered, peering over the top of the magazine to take a look at the 
article I wasn't reading.

	I tossed the magazine aside before he really got a good look.  
It wasn't important.  "Just some interview with some guy.  I only got as 
far as how the war wrecked his business, and then how he was recovering 
after its end, and then I guess I must have started drifting off around 
then.  Same old, same old, you know?"

	Heero sat himself down on the edge of the bed, and I 
automatically scooted over a bit to make enough room so that his 
position wasn't quite so uncomfortable.  "Maybe one day we'll see our 
stories in print."

	I snorted.  Our stories were already in print, sort of, only 
they weren't really our stories.  Our identities as Gundam pilots 
weren't exactly top secret, but it wasn't made available to the general 
public, either.  Even if people did know our names, just the nature of 
who we were -- well, at least who me, Heero, and Trowa were -- made 
finding information on us pretty difficult.  That left the media with 
some pretty big holes to fill, and fill them they did, with whatever 
information they could scrounge up.  The pictures of us they pieced 
together weren't the most accurate things I'd ever read, but they sure 
were exciting and dramatic.  I don't think the truth would have been 
nearly as interesting to them, although it could be said that the truth 
was stranger than fiction.  Who would have believed, after all, that 
really mundane things had happened in our lives?  That Trowa was a 
circus clown?  That the scar on Heero's finger came from the sharp edge 
of an old computer case?  That I had once thought about joining the 
priesthood?  That none of us were over a hundred seventy centimeters?  
"I'm not telling anyone my story," I said, quite decisively.  There were 
some memories I held near and dear, and I wasn't about to let them 
become sensationalized.  "Besides, it definitely wouldn't be same old, 
same old."

	"Maybe that's what would make it interesting."

	"Please.  People are interested in quick little sound bits.  
These terrible war stories are so great because the war swooped down 
upon them like a harpy and snatched away the fruits of their labor in a 
blink of an eye.  Instant tragedy.  They don't care anything about the 
lives that were years in the dying.  They had their war, maybe only less 
than half a year of hardship, and it's their great sob story, even 
though it's got a happy ending, but the war itself had nothing to do 
with me, not really, not with the hardships I had when I was growing up.  
The war didn't drag me down, it lifted me up and out of that place."  I 
stopped suddenly, aware that my volume had risen.  I hadn't realized I 
held some sort of grudge against these people until I had said it aloud, 
but it was true.  These people were crying over a papercut when there 
were hundreds of thousands of others out there bleeding to death, if 
they weren't the living dead already.  It didn't seem right to be 
incensed by their happiness, but I didn't feel that it was well-earned.  
Did these people have any idea how much crap I've had to wade through 
just to be alive and healthy today?  And no, I wasn't about to tell 
them, but still.

	Heero tugged one of my pillows over a bit to provide him some 
cushioning as he leaned back against the headboard, perhaps 
coincidentally or not, giving me some time to put my irritation away.  
He was such a sly bastard, I couldn't always tell if his actions were 
brilliant, or mere serendipity.  "I wouldn't tell anyone my story, 
either," he informed me leisurely.  "I'm sure it would be quite boring."

	"There was a time when you were billed as the savior of the 
world, you know," I said in response, my tone calm and dry once again.  
"That would guarantee a good read."

	There was a half-snort, half-chuckle.  "That wasn't me.  That 
was some towering superhero the media concocted to give them something 
interesting to report on, when the reality was that there was just me, 
just doing what I had to do.  Hardly the stuff great articles are made 
of."

	"Your inability to see your own greatness never fails to amaze 
me."  I poked my companion in the side.  Maybe it was the very fact that 
he was just 'doing what he had to' that made him such a, pardon the pun 
-- but really, he said it first -- a hero.  That was his calling.  He 
only felt it was his duty because some higher power or another had given 
him the ability to change lives, and nothing made him have to do 
anything besides his own sense of responsibility and obligation to wield 
that power.  And while it was frustrating that he would never be able to 
see that, it was also beautiful, in its own way.  Like how they say that 
humility is lost the moment you become aware of it.  I didn't want him 
to ever lose that part of him.  It defined him.

	"I could say the same about you," he retorted calmly.

	Ha, that was a laugh.  I wanted to deny that, but I was afraid 
that if I did, then he would start pointing out examples of my supposed 
greatness, and I wasn't prepared to listen to that.  He might just have 
been able to convince me of its truth, although where he would find the 
evidence of it was quite beyond me.  Heero could do anything he set his 
mind to.  I was quite comfortable being entrenched as I was in the 
notion of my own inferiority, however, thank you very much.  Well, maybe 
not inferiority, per se, but I knew where my roots were, and I knew they 
weren't pretty.  I made a cynical statement instead to divert the 
conversation.  "My, what a fine pair we are."

	"I like to think so," Heero agreed amiably.

	Uh-oh.  That wasn't what he was supposed to say.  Another one of 
those frighteningly warm and fuzzy thoughts was lurking around the 
corner again, and I immediately wanted to shoo it away, but I thought 
that wouldn't be fair.  I was supposed to be giving this thing a shot, 
right?  And with the ground rules that we had laid down, I knew that the 
risk was as minimized as it was going to get.  So with a conscious 
effort, I let down my defenses just enough to let the poor thing squeeze 
through and make its way into my heart, where it chose to tingle down to 
my toes and back again.  I closed my eyes briefly and enjoyed the 
sensation.  I would never get used to that, but that was a good thing, 
wasn't it?

	A little voice whispered to me that I would never have the 
opportunity to get used to it.  I flicked it away.  Then another took 
its place, telling me that if I didn't want to get used to it, then 
maybe I'd better make sure they were few and far between.  I always was 
a pack-rat and a hoarder, to the extent that one can be when one has 
very little storage capacity.  I knew how to make things last, how to 
make the most of things.  Not having much in the way of material things, 
and not having many opportunities to acquire such things, tends to do 
that to a person, if he wants to survive, anyway.  It makes you take 
what you can and hold on to it for as long as you can.  Hell, I even 
hoarded my hair, and my memories, good and bad, with it.  Or maybe I was 
just a paranoid bastard.  You never knew when you might need something.  
And when the right voice finally came along, the one that advised me to 
enjoy it as much as I could while it lasted, to gather as much goodness 
as I possibly could so that I could keep it in storage for the 
unpredictable future, I tried to follow its advice.

	But I also knew about gorging oneself prematurely.  I knew that 
if you hadn't eaten for days, it wasn't good to bolt down the first 
thing you laid your grubby little fingers on, because it was just going 
to come right back up and go to waste.  I knew that getting greedy and 
taking more than you could carry at once was always a bad plan.  It 
would slow you down, or you were going to end up dropping everything, or 
even if you managed to get it all back to your bolt hole, someone would 
come along and try to take it from you.

	I also knew that hesitation could cost you a chance, so it 
surprised me that I kept approaching this situation with that very thing 
that should have been avoided.  I just couldn't help dancing around the 
slumbering beast, taking hesitant pokes at it and waiting for it to rear 
its ugly head and bite my hand off.  Some people saw something cute and 
fluffy, like a poodle or a schnauzer.  I saw Kerberos, grinning hungrily 
at me with three sets of long, sharp teeth.  Normally, that wouldn't 
bother me, because I knew I could run pretty damn fast, or at least whip 
out some major artillery and blow any sucker back to hell where it 
belonged, but this puppy was sure to take a good-sized chunk out of my 
ass if I didn't watch my step.  Heero assured me that there was a heavy 
duty leash on the thing keeping it in check.  Hell, I watched the both 
of us snap that thing onto its collar myself.

	This was where Heero was wrong when he said he didn't play 
poker, because this whole system we rigged up had a distinct poker-ish 
feel to it, at least as I understood it.  The cards were like our 
emotions, with our actions as our coin.  We both paid the opening ante, 
and from there, it was up to us to play as we felt comfortable with.  If 
we were comfortable with our cards, then we would raise.  If one of us 
called, we played the hand out, collected our winnings, and repeated the 
cycle.  If one of us folded, we took a step back, counted our money, 
re-dealt the cards, and had another go at it.  But of course, unlike 
poker, this wasn't a zero-sum game.  Our pockets were as deep as our 
hearts could afford, as wide as our confidence allowed, and we always 
shared the winnings.

	So the slavering beast was supposedly sedated, but for all I 
knew, it was just pretending.  Besides, I didn't want to just snatch the 
prize and run.  I didn't want to placate it with honey cakes, to slip 
past it with tricks and false pretenses for the sake of winning 
something I had no right to.  I wanted it on my side, to growl and 
attack anything and anyone that would try to take my Heero away from me.

	Heh.  My Heero.  *My* Heero.  That did have a rather nice ring 
to it, didn't it?  I firmly stopped my lips from spreading in a goofy 
grin.  Maybe I could be surprised by my hesitance because I was still 
surprised by the very fact that there was something to be hesitant 
about.  There were still mornings when I woke up, and was surprised to 
find myself in a warm bed.  Inside a secure house, a place I called 
home.  With a live-in... pretty good candidate for significant other.

	When was I going to give up this pretense and just say it out 
loud?  We were already making decisions based on the unspoken facts.  We 
assumed them to be true, and maybe in our heart of hearts, we even knew 
them to be true.  But nevertheless, I insisted on clinging to my comfort 
level, to my safe and innocuous words that hoped to hide my private, 
secret hopes and dreams from the cold, harsh outside world.  Ah well.  
I'd get over it eventually.  I hoped.

	A silence had fallen, and while it was comfortable, it was at 
least partially motivated by the fact that I had wandered off and 
forgotten what we were talking about.  That was remarkable by itself.  I 
remembered a time when I could set my mouth on auto-pilot and let my 
mind wander off on its own tangents without a problem.  I think I 
stopped doing that when I came here, though.  Although, more accurately, 
it was probably not Haven so much as Heero and his silent influence.  
Well, there was at least one part of my past I could leave behind me 
without regret.  I was still working on the rest of it.

	I lazily poked Heero in his side again, mostly because my hand 
was there, and his side was there, and steered my mind back to the main 
thread of the conversation.  "It's pretty depressing to think that if 
the war hadn't happened, then I would probably still be rotting away on 
L2, if I was even still alive, or barely alive, as the case may be, or 
in prison, or... whatever.  And it's not that I can't think of anything 
worse, because believe me, I can easily think of all sorts of worse 
things, and I really don't want to.  And it's pretty damned sad when 
being picked up and turned into a messenger of death is not one of the 
worse things."

	Okay.  Not really what I wanted to say, but what I did, 
unfortunately, say.  Ah, the pile of space junk from my youth.  That old 
colony could always darken my thoughts.  There was a time when I called 
that place home, and home it was, in a rather twisted sense.  You knew 
it would always be there, even if you tried to escape it.  It just 
waited patiently for you to fall back into its embrace, as all its 
children did, and when you did, it would sink its hooks into you and 
never let go.  It was a place you would always belong to.  You couldn't 
run far enough or fast enough to ever leave its scent behind.

	With a flip of his wrist, Heero managed to swipe me in the side, 
too, although it wasn't really a poke so much as a brush.  "You can't 
separate the war from the circumstances on L2.  The war was an 
inevitable result of things like that.  Therefore, it's pointless to be 
depressed about an impossibility."

	And that was his attempt at cheering me up.  I poked him a 
little more aggressively this time.  "Maybe I like doing pointless 
things."

	"But you don't like being depressed."  He swiped me again in 
retaliation, bothering to move his hand just a little more than last 
time.  Lazy bastard.  At least I was lifting my hand.

	"And that is the only reason I'm letting your lame reasoning 
fly, Yuy."  I thwapped him weakly this time, scoring a little higher on 
his ribs before letting my hand fall oh so casually on top of his, thus 
preventing him from making another strike.  And perhaps incidentally 
just letting our hands rest together, but the ulterior motive made me 
feel better about it.

	The contact didn't last long since he slid his hand out from 
under mine, managed to almost poke me right in the tummy, and then 
followed my own tactics and pinned my hand to the bed.  "It was 
perfectly sound reasoning, Duo."

	"Maybe in Yuyland," I retorted, cheating and using my far hand 
to dig my fingers into his side.  If he was ticklish, he had an iron 
will over his muscles, because all I got out of him was a twitch.  "You 
should try living with the rest of us some time."

	"I like living in Yuyland."  His tone almost made me expect to 
see a pout on his face.  I was just wondering what a Heero-pout would 
look like when he took advantage of my distraction, seized my hand, and 
attacked me with my own fingers.

	"Foul!" I cried, and from there, a general ruckus ensued.  He 
may have been the 'better' fighter of us, but I was the dirtier, and in 
the no-holds-barred-as-long-as-no-one-gets-hurt wrestling-brawl that 
followed, dirty helped.  I laughed freely as we played.  It had been a 
long time since we had last had a good rough-and-tumble, what with Lena 
being here and all, and then all the trips out to the colonies before 
that.  Actually, there was that time in the sprinklers, after the tour, 
before the vacation.  There hadn't been much rolling around that time, 
the grass being wet and stuff.  It wasn't something we ever planned, 
though, just like it happened this time.

	The first time it happened, it wasn't really as playful as it 
was now.  One day, back in school, I got back to the room feeling 
generally pissy, and something Heero did managed to irritate me (he was 
probably just being calm), and something must have happened.  I don't 
really remember.  Maybe I gave him a small shove, and he shoved back, 
and then off we went.  It was wonderful stress relief, even if we did 
manage to end up with some difficult to explain bruises and a dented 
lamp.  I think that was one of the first times I ever heard Heero laugh.  
Like, really laugh.  Like he was really enjoying himself and there was 
no one around to witness his little indiscretion.  Twisted fellow, since 
we started out trying to beat each other up, but then again, when we 
first met, we were pointing guns at each other.  No surprise, eh?  
Perhaps this will always be a relationship based on rivalry, and that 
sounds fine with me.  It's something I'm well familiar with, only this 
is better than the stuff I'm used to.  I find this sort of thing fun 
because it doesn't matter who wins.  Heero probably thinks it's cool 
that he's familiar with a dozen different styles of fighting, and he 
isn't hurting anyone with any of them.

	But, as I said, I fight dirtier, and I won this round.  The 
boundaries of the bed added an extra challenge.  I ended up sitting on 
his legs, keeping his hands glued to the mattress by his side with my 
own.  My weight was shifted slightly to one side to keep that side down, 
and although that made it easier to flip me off from the other side, it 
also meant tossing me off the bed, since we were close to the edge.  It 
was, generally speaking, a situation we had seen many times before.  
Panting.  Straddling.  "God.  I'm beginning to see what Suzuhara-san 
found so ambiguous about us."

	He stared at me with first a question, then just a hint of 
amusement in his eyes.  My braid, slightly mussed, hung over my shouder, 
reminding me of its shortened length.  I used to able to move my head 
and add insult to injury by tickling him with it.  Okay, more like 
create the image of tickling him, since I'm sure he couldn't feel the 
light touch through his shirt, but it was the thought that counted.  My 
necklace hung down, too, still out from when I had been playing with it, 
and the sight of it reminded me of the two that had been my parent 
figures for all too short a time, and I wondered briefly, as I all too 
often did, what they would think of me now.  Me straddling my best 
friend, aside.  Well, maybe including that.

	I knew, all things considered, that my life probably didn't look 
too good, but Heero must have noticed me staring at that little piece of 
silver again, because with the fingers on the hand that I had pinned 
palm upwards, he reached up my wrist and brushed my skin lightly in 
reassurance.  I closed my eyes, looked at my cards, and decided I could 
afford to call, and even raise just a little.  Into the pot, I tossed 
the action of me relaxing my grip, bending my elbows, shifting forward, 
and laying myself down to rest mostly on top of him.

	"There are some days," I started softly, after giving him some 
time to fold if necessary, "when I'm just positive that I'm going to 
hell."  I sighed, my warm breath surely tickling the flesh of his neck 
so close to my lips.  A long, slow inhalation gifted me with the gentle 
scent of that shampoo I had been forcibly made aware of.  Well, 
whatever.  I liked it.

	"I wouldn't worry about it too much," he advised, shifting his 
hands to capture mine within his own light grasp.  That was a bit easier 
on the wrists.

	"You don't worry about anything."  There weren't many people 
(that liked me) that wouldn't try to convince me that I was wrong about 
my eventual destination.  Something I had always appreciated about 
Heero.  It crossed my mind that it was a good thing he was a boyfriend 
and not a girlfriend, because breasts probably would have gotten in the 
way of this.  As it was, I took the time to appreciate the feel of the 
firm body cushioning my own.  It was... different.  But quite pleasant.  
And deliciously warm.  For some reason, I never thought I was cold until 
I felt how warm I could be with Heero nearby.  The cold kept me on edge.  
His heat was making me feel relaxed and drowsy.

	"It shouldn't be so bad."  One of his thumbs moved absently 
against my skin.  I was really beginning to like his hands.

	"Hello, we're talking eternal damnation, here.  How can that not 
be bad?"  He felt strong, and healthy, and alive, and the mechanic in me 
purred in appreciation of a complicated machine maintained for peak 
performance.  Graceful arcs of motion were traced before my mind's eye, 
parts moving in efficient harmony, the human body rendered in dynamic 
systems both beautiful and complex in their neatness.  With a twitch, my 
fingers informed me that they would like an opportunity some time to 
explore this fine thing.  I told them to be patient.

	"If you're going to hell, then surely, so am I."  He squeezed my 
hands in warning.  "And don't argue with me."

	Ah, he knew me too well.  I considered arguing anyway, but 
decided that it was irrelevant.  He could believe what he wanted to.  
Besides, I could always fall a few circles lower than he did.

	"So we can get together down there.  Hang out.  Raise hell.  
Maybe stage a rebellion, even overthrow the government.  Shouldn't be so 
bad at all."

	A quiet chuckle escaped my lips.  Well, when he put it that way, 
eternal damnation sounded kinda fun.  And that thought alone probably 
earned me a ticket to hell.  "Promise?"

	He paused.  "Supposing that a hell exists, and that we actually 
end up there, and that it allows us to retain some form of 
consciousness, and that we can use that consciousness to manipulate our 
beings into following our wills?  Promise."

	 Oh, like that wasn't a hefty list of requirements for 
qualification.  Well, it was better than nothing.  They weren't 
restrictions so much as Heero agreeing only so long as such a thing was 
possible, which was entirely Heero-like.  He didn't make promises he 
didn't intend to keep, he didn't say things he didn't think he could 
support, he didn't make decisions he might regret.  Several more points 
in his favor.

	I readjusted my weight again and slid off him to the side, 
relieving his chest of the burden of mine.  It was probably making it 
hard for him to breathe or something.  He didn't release my hands, 
though, and as I tried to figure out this whole lying entangled next to 
somebody thing, something occurred to me.  "Wait.  Did you just promise 
to spend the rest of eternity with me?  Provided that eternity exists, 
of course."

	Another pause as he analyzed his words.  "Hn.  I suppose so."

	Silly smile got away from me that time.  I finally found a good 
position, and as I settled down, it was to thoughts of hell, of me and 
Heero and our good ol' trusty buddy Kerberos by our side.

-------
the ambiguously gay duo.  ha!  i'm surprised i never noticed that 
before, but then again, it's been ages since i last watched snl.  
anyway.

kerberos, you know?  dread watchdog of hades?  that psyche bribed with 
honey cakes so that she could slip into the underworld and ask 
persephone for some of her beauty in a box.  she was sent on the test by 
aphrodite to prove her worthiness of eros.  the beauty was supposed to 
go back to aphrodite, but psyche got curious and covetous and opened the 
box to borrow some beauty for herself, but being a mere mortal, i 
believe it struck her down or put her into a deep sleep or something.  
i'm too lazy to look it up.

_________________________________________
This piece of fiction is the intellectual 
property of the little turnip that could.  
The basis for this fic, i.e. Gundam Wing, 
Kyuuketsuki Miyu, et al., is the property 
of someone else.  The author can be con-
tacted at jchew@myrealbox.com.  This has 
been an entirely automated message.
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~jchew/misc/gw.html

last modified : 8/15/2002 01:37:48 PST